The Philippine and United States military forces will hold the biggest Balikatan exercise this year, Army chief Lt. Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. said on Wednesday.

"So last year, it is claimed that we had the biggest Balikatan exercise so far with more than 8,000 troops and about 2000 troops coming together for the annual exercise. This year it is claimed that this will be a bigger exercise than the past year's Balikatan exercise with the involvement of more troops," he said.

Brawner said this year's Balikatan exercise will be held "from April to June."

"Activities not just focus on developing the war fighting capabilities of both armies or both armed forces but also the other non traditional role such as humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR), that is why the activities will be spread throughout the country," he said.

"A lot of these will be done in our traditional exercise areas such as Fort Magsaysay. We also have Tarlac, our camp in Tarlac. We will also have humanitarian activities to the Northern part of the country down to the south," he added.

Brawner said that "all of these exercises that we are doing are in response to all types of threats that we will be facing in the future both man made and natural."

He also noted that this year's Balikatan exercise will also be observed by the forces from other states, including Japan.

Former AFP chief of staff Lt. Gen. Bartolome Bacarro previously mentioned that the participants of this year's Balikatan exercise will increase to 15,000 Philippine and US forces.

Bacarro explained that the activities for Balikatan 2023 increased because there were activities that were not able to be conducted in the past years due to COVID-19 pandemic. Robina Asido/DMS